Opium Rebounds on China Demand

By

Sam Holmes

Updated Nov. 1, 2012 7:45 a.m. ET

Opium cultivation in Southeast Asia's main poppy-growing countries has more than doubled over the past six years driven largely by rising heroin demand in China and despite recent efforts by regional governments to eradicate the crop, the United Nations' narcotics office said in a report released Wednesday.

The report's figures show a resurgence in poppy cultivation in Southeast Asia's notorious Golden Triangle—an area where parts of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand converge—that abuts southern China. It is one of the world's...